Resolution commending BSU volleyball team moves to House

BOISE — A House committee Thursday approved a joint resolution to commend the Boise State women’s volleyball team’s decision to forfeit against a team with a reportedly transgender player.

The State Affairs Committee voted along party lines to send to the floor for a full vote House Concurrent Resolution 2, which also calls on the Mountain West Conference and NCAA to revoke policies that allow trans athletes to compete under certain conditions. Two people testified in favor and one against during the hearing.

Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, who is a former collegiate athlete and women’s basketball coach, sponsored the resolution.

“To me, they (Boise State) demonstrated true integrity at that time by sticking with their principles and saying, ‘you know what, it’s not right, it’s not right that we should have to play against a biological male,’” Ehardt said Thursday.

Boise State this season forfeited twice during the regular season against San José State University. The team also withdrew from the Mountain West Conference tournament after the Broncos won their first game and were scheduled to play the San José State Spartans in the next round. That forfeit ended Boise State’s season.

BSU never commented on the reason for the forfeitures. Three other Mountain West teams and one nonconference team forfeited against the Spartans this season.

San José State and the player have not commented on the player’s gender identity.

Ehardt on Thursday co-presented the resolution with Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer who has become a prominent voice against transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, as well as Marshi Smith, the co-founder of the Nevada-based Independent Council on Women’s Sports.

Gaines spoke about her experience swimming against Lia Thomas, who became the first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. Gaines in 2022 tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle at the NCAA women’s swimming national championship meet.

Gaines this summer traveled to Idaho and joined Gov. Brad Little as he signed an executive order requiring schools to comply with a law that bars transgender women and girls from competing on teams for women and girls, the Idaho Press reported. Courts have blocked the law from being enforced as it’s being litigated.

Smith is also a former collegiate swimmer and spoke in support of the bill. The Independent Council on Women’s Sports was one of the three national groups that reached out to BSU to encourage a boycott, Idaho Education News reported.

Edward Clark, a policy assistant at the Idaho Family Policy Center, spoke in favor of the resolution, saying it protected women’s and girls’ safety. April Chainey, who said her daughter played volleyball on another Mountain West conference team that forfeited against the Spartans, also favored the resolution, and criticized the policy that counts the forfeits as losses against the teams that chose to boycott.

Nikson Mathews, a previous legislative candidate and openly transgender man, testified against the resolution. He cited a recent statement by NCAA President Charlie Baker, who said out of the more than 500,000 NCAA athletes, there are fewer than 10 trans athletes.

“This has been made out to be a crisis,” Mathews said. “It is massive, this thing that is happening of trans people participating in sports, but it’s not so.”

He also pointed to current regulations around testosterone thresholds and a waiting period for NCAA athletes to compete if they are transgender.

Committee Chairperson Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, who was a co-sponsor on the resolution, asked whether a player was being discriminated against if they didn’t make a team over a transgender athlete.

“There’s going to be people that feel differently about this, but trans women are women and participating in sports as women,” Mathews said. “Trans people are not dominating sports, and so when you go into sports you have to recognize sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t, and that’s just the reality of it.”

Boise Democrats Reps. Brooke Green and Todd Achilles, both spoke about their respect for those who testified but said the NCAA needs to continue to work through its regulations. Green and Achilles were the lone “no” votes.

The player who had been identified as trans has played three seasons at San José State and had played against Boise State and the other Mountain West teams that forfeited in the 2024 season multiple times in years prior; SJSU had a 12-6 conference record in the 2024 season, including six wins by forfeit. The Spartans were defeated by Colorado State in the Mountain West tournament championship match.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.